


parallax, or how a great city and great man fell at once

by oliviathecf



Category: DCU (Comics), Green Lantern (Comics), Green Lantern - All Media Types, The Death of Superman (2018)
Genre: Emerald Twilight, Hal Jordan becomes Parallax, This is a weird one for me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-23 19:51:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17689787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oliviathecf/pseuds/oliviathecf
Summary: the end he was always meant to face.





	parallax, or how a great city and great man fell at once

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah. This is a weird one. This isn't something I'd usually write, but it just wouldn't leave me alone. This is what we deserved in Reign of the Supermen, and I really do love Parallax. So it's my interpretation of Hal becoming Parallax.
> 
> Enjoy, I guess.

A man knelt in a hole and thought that it all made sense in a strange way. The hole was around twelve miles in diameter, the destruction went on for miles longer and would stretch for years beyond, irreparable, irreplaceable. The dry dirt smudged brown on his knees, a fact that would’ve bothered him years ago but he couldn’t find it to be anything else but fitting.

Everything was gone, the last relic of Coast City was a man with an incredible power and an incredible sense of powerlessness, and he was kneeling in the hole. All that was left was a man that some people might’ve called great once but now he wasn’t sure, because shouldn’t great men be able to stop something like that? What right did he have to call himself anything but a failure, Hal can’t remember a time where he ever felt like he was anything great, at least not recently. 

And there was also the hole. Was it something he deserved?

He thought it was funny in some sick way. Why should he get to have any form of living happiness on Earth, chasing a dream that he could call that city a home with Olivia or Carol, new or old. Instead, he was left to the ash and bones of his memories, and he wondered if he could bring it all back. Some people called him great, maybe he could do it.

His city formed before him and he thought that he could make it right. Those streets, they had belonged to him in a way just as they belonged to itself, just as they hadn’t been his in a very long time. It had been tempting and Hal was one to succumb to temptation. To rewrite it all and get his happy ending.

His city reformed before his eyes, bright, brilliant, green, and Hal thought that he hadn’t felt emptier. Walking through the streets, seeing those familiar faces that remained frozen in time. His first girlfriend, as she looked when they had broken up. She had gotten married and had kids, but that was after he had found the stars and lost himself in them. She held his hand and they walked through the old streets together, passing shops and restaurants that he had been into in years, the old record store on his street that had closed a few years back.

Her name was Jenny. His was Harold, Hal, Highball, Green Lantern, and it would soon be something else. 

But he was getting ahead of himself. 

He ended up alone at the door of the home he had grown up in, the one his brothers had sold off after their mom had passed away. It was unlocked, and he pushed the door open to see his father sitting at the table, like he hadn’t seen since he lost him, well before he lost himself.

They didn’t speak, they didn’t have to. His dad smiled at him, and they drank out of green cups that had no taste to them. But it wasn’t about the taste, it was about the action.

“This is wrong.” Hal said after a long moment, and his dad frowned.  
“You’re starting to scare me.” The construct of his father said, sitting at the kitchen table with his head in his hands, his hands in his head.

Everything he had worked hard to keep, the city he had saved countless times, there was no saving it this time. It was gone and, with one last flash of green, it was gone again. 

There was just Hal and his hole. It was twelve miles in diameter, and Hal was kneeling in it yet again, staring at skull that could’ve been someone he used to know.

His hands weren’t meant to keep anything, he wasn’t strong enough to light the fire that brought his city back.

But he could be.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. 
> 
> [ Fic Blog ](http://fanfictionolivia.tumblr.com/)   
>  [ Twitter ](https://twitter.com/fficolivia)   
>  [ Pillowfort ](https://www.pillowfort.io/oliviathecf)


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